King Arthur Movie Tristan

title: The Other Boleyn Girl


author: Philippa Gregory


genre: historical fiction

pages: 661

published: 2001

first line: I could hear a roll of muffled drums.

rated: 5 out of 5




First off, I need to start by saying that this book was excellent. I enjoyed every minute of it, and it was a real page turner. It is a bit hard for me to review, I think mostly because there is so much going on in the story, but I will summarize it a bit.




Young Mary Boleyn catches Henry VIII's eye and with the plotting of her family, she leaves her husband and begins a courtship with the King. There is much jealousy between Mary and her older sister Anne. The two sisters look as different as night and day, Mary being the fair one and Anne being the dark one. Anne is the one who is in charge of helping Mary seduce the king. She tells Mary how to act and what to say around him. All the while the two sisters have a love/hate relationship. Anne hates being Mary's servant and helper, she has plans and ambitions of her own.





In time Mary has a daughter by the king, then later on a son. Being the king's mistress has it's rewards, her family members and her own husband are granted gifts and power in the king's Court. But, while Mary is pregnant the second time, she is having a rough time, so the Boleyn family appoints Anne to flirt with the King and keep his attention on the Boleyn women. Of course, Anne takes it as far as she can and winds up becoming the King's mistress herself. After that, ambitious Anne decides she wants the king and the throne as well. Anne will stop at nothing to get what she wants, and tries to get the king to divorce his wife, Queen Katherine, and marry her instead.

The lines between Anne and me were now clearly drawn. All our childhood it had been a question as to which of us was the best Boleyn girl, now our girlhood rivalry was to be played out on the greatest stage in the kingdom. By the end of the summer one of us would be the acknowledged mistress of the king; the other would be her maid, her assistant, perhaps her Fool.

This book was full of drama and plenty of backstabbing. I found Anne and Mary's relationship to be the most interesting. These two sisters both hated and loved each other. I though George, the Boleyn brother, was another very interesting character.
I found this book hard to put down and it kept me up late at night reading. I enjoyed every minute of this one and highly recommend it. But before reading this one, I do suggest reading Philippa Gregory's The Constant Princess which is about the Princess of Spain who later becomes Henry's wife. It's not necessary to read that one first, but I think it's nice to get the storyline behind Henry and Queen Katherine's marriage.




The writing in The Other Boleyn Girl was great, the plot fantastic and the characters are well written. The story is narrated by Mary and you can't help but feel bad for her, she is thrown into a life of lies and deceit at an early age. You also wonder how she continues to put up with Anne and be loyal to her. I liked the dialouge between the three Boleyns; Anne, Mary and George. Just when you think the plot can't thicken, it does.




Here are a few of my favorite passages:

There was nothing I could do but take second place and smile. The king might bed me at night, but all the day he was Anne's. For the first time in all the long while that I had been his lover I felt like a whore indeed, and it was my own sister who shamed me.

"I didn't want you to come back to court to be my rival," I said sulkily.

"I was born to be your rival," she said simply. "And you mine. We're sisters, aren't we?"

Anne and father were delayed by spring storms and I found myself hoping, childlishly, that her boat would sink and she would drown. At the thought of her death I felt a confusing pang of genuine distress mixed with elation. There could hardly be a world for me without Anne, there was hardly world enough for us both.

Jane and I kneeled side by side in the queen's chapel and listened to the Mass celebrated before the altar of the church below us.


"Jane," I said quietly.

She opened her eyes, she had been far away in prayer.

"Yes, Mary? Forgive me, I was praying."

"If you go on flirting with the king with those sickly little smiles, one of us Boleyns is going to scratch your eyes out."

The Other Boleyn Girl was made into a film in 2008.

I did see the film version and enjoyed it. However, I liked the book much better. There's many differences between the two.